All Books
- The reasons why democracy is in decline around the world
From Poland to Britain to the U.S., antidemocratic political movements have enjoyed the support of the conservative elite, says Anne Applebaum.
- ‘Natural History’ is a beautiful, challenging puzzle
A collaboration between a curator and a fashion designer evolves into a mind-bending exploration of perception and truth in this enigmatic novel.
- Before Serena Williams and Megan Rapinoe: Early female athletes paved way
Lottie Dod and Alice Marble blazed a trail not only in sport but also through gender stereotypes, as successful competitors.
- A warm goodbye to summer with four great audiobooks
Squeeze in one last beach with one of our reviewer’s recommendations for audiobooks of August 2020 and settle in for a diversion.
- Last chance for a summer fling: The 10 best books of August 2020
An impressive stable of imaginative fiction, insightful memoir, and illuminating history rounds out our list of best new books for August 2020.
- ‘Brontë’s Mistress’ may speculate, but it does so delightfully
Historians will quibble over what we can really know, but this historical novel is a worthwhile diversion full of vibrant, multifaceted characters.
- Russians took their pianos with them into exile in Siberia
Can you know a place by its instruments? A British travel writer wanders Siberia on a strange and wonderful quest to write about historic pianos.
- Hawaii’s Big Island creates the setting for a novel about family and memory
“The Color of Air,” a new novel by Gail Tsukiyama, looks at lives in a Hawaiian village in the 1930s.
- Shakespeare grieves his son’s death in Maggie O’Farrell’s poignant novel
In an interview, Maggie O’Farrell explains why she believes the play “Hamlet” is tied in part to the death of Shakespeare’s 11-year-old son, Hamnet.
- Does America have a ‘caste’ system? Isabel Wilkerson explains.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist argues that race and class divisions owe more to a caste system that everyone “knows in their bones.”
- ‘A Registry of My Passage upon the Earth’ is compassionate, wise
A new collection of short historical fiction stories is characterized by its beautiful prose and its author’s gentle curiosity and sense of wonder.
- What wasn’t the US telling about Hiroshima? A reporter found out.
The book “Fallout” examines John Hersey’s reporting in The New Yorker in 1946, which set the agenda for anti-nuclear activism.
- The problem with the word ‘suffrage’: It excludes Black women activists
Historian Martha S. Jones answers questions about the political history of Black women in America and their collective struggle for voting rights.
- Camping in Siberia: On the trail of the world’s largest owl
American biologist Jonathan C. Slaght joins Russian ornithologists in studying the habitat of the endangered Blakiston’s fish owl.
- Q&A with Alexander Keyssar, author of ‘Why Do We Still Have the Electoral College?’
The Harvard Kennedy School professor blames the desire of politicians to “game the system” for the long life of this deeply unpopular institution.
- ‘Mayday 1971’ is a close-up look at largest US mass arrest
Lawrence Roberts protested at the May 1971 anti-Vietnam War rally in Washington. Now, his comprehensive history sheds light on the influential event.
- Pandemic pen pals: How Colombian libraries lift spirits
Libraries in Medellín, Colombia, help overcome pandemic-induced isolation with “Love in the Time of Coronavirus,” an anonymous letter-writing program.
- Will there be a third era of American trust-busting?
Two new books take stock of the American market, and what they find isn’t good: Monopolies control industries like meat, technology, and more.
- No detail spared: ‘Warhol’ expands on the life of the Pop Art icon
Biographer Blake Gopnik mines the archives of the famously self-involved, and cannily entrepreneurial, painter of soup cans and Hollywood stars.
- The best audiobooks of July provide an escape
Let your summer getaway include a new Sherlock Holmes adventure, a memoir about reinvention, and two novels that offer insights on racial identity.